Laboring in the obscurity he so richly deserves for over a decade now, your crusty correspondent sporadically offers his views on family, law, politics and money. Nothing herein should be taken too seriously: If you look closely, you can almost see the twinkle in Curmudgeon's eye. Or is that a cataract?

Thursday, June 05, 2008

I'm glad I'm not young any more -- Or -- Youngest Son and Middle Son compare their summer schedules

I mentioned yesterday that Youngest Son starts Driver's Ed soon -- just after he finishes his summer school class in computer use.

It's required at his school... but they work the schedules so most kids have to take it in the summer, either before or after their freshman year. It's just a little larcenous. Anyway, he chose after.

And Youngest Son was chosen to play on the school's freshman summer league baseball team. Most of their games are on weekdays. So to maximize his playing time, he tried out for and made a 15 year old travel team... that plays in a 16 year old league.

It's called trial by ordeal. That's not the name of the team (although it may be it's name here, if I write about them); it's what they're in for in this league. Anyway, this team plays mostly on weekends to avoid conflict with the various school teams from which it draws players.

And did I mention that football camp started this week? Just a couple of days this week -- there are strict limits on these things imposed by the state high school association. And camp is in the evening, so as not to conflict with baseball.

Youngest Son was lamenting his busy schedule with Middle Son the other night.

Though they live under the same roof, you've just seen part of the reason why they don't often get a chance to talk.

Middle Son responded with a recitation of his own summer schedule.

He got a full-time internship in a nearby accounting firm.

(This is where we go into one of those good news-bad news routines: The good news... the office is nearby and, we thought, even if he drove the car could be accessed by another family member in need. The bad news... he's been put on an auditing project... in a far western suburb... which can not be accessed by public transportation... even in Al Gore's imagination. The good news... the internship is paid. The bad news... at this rate, his pay will go mostly for gas. The good news... his school will let him earn college credit for this internship, too. The bad news... the school expects payment for giving him hours to work for a third party... and they demanded payment up front.

Anyway, Middle Son is working full time... at least eight hours a day... and with commuting more like 10 or 11. He still has to stay in shape for baseball. He wants to start lifting in the morning so he can maintain a more reasonable throwing schedule in the evenings -- but that's on hold until he finishes this project in the far western 'burbs. In the meantime, he's lifting and throwing in the evenings.

And he has a summer team, too. A couple of his teammates were invited to a summer league in Idaho, where they will be seen by pro scouts -- but Middle Son was not invited. So he'll play in a local college league, a league that, he says, has been upgraded this year.

And he's trying to graduate with 150 hours. Apparently that's a prerequisite to taking the CPA exam and employers want kids who, if not already CPA's, are at least CPA-ready. I guess that's like cable-ready or something.

But because he did not start out his undergraduate career with this goal in mind, he's got some catching up to do. Taking max academic loads this year and next won't be enough. He needs the six hours he negotiated with the school for his internship... and he needs nine more besides. So he's signed up for three on-line courses at the local junior college.

No, I don't know when he'll have time for these either.

Neither did Youngest Son, who promptly conceded the game of 'can you top this' when his brother laid the facts before him.

5 comments:

When I went to college (1990-94) as a returning adult student, with two teens at home and a full-time job, I survived the first three semesters like that and half of the fourth before I quit the full-time job and took a part-time position. Because I was deficient in my math requirements for admission, I had to take six credits of math but which didn't count towards my degree. Of course, they weren't free either, Rats. But to fulfill my regular math requirements, I took statistics courses -the first in a class setting (3 credit) and the 4 credit stat class I took by correspondence. Took me almost 9 months to complete that puppy and the fall of my 3rd year, when I was still taking the stat 4-credit class, I also was carrying 18 credits in the classroom, three days a week, back-to-back from 9 a.m. until almost 3:30 in the afternoon -only break was the 10 or 15 minutes getting from one class to the other. By mid-October, I was praying, desperately to just get out of that semester ALIVE! Thought I was gonna die, I did! But then too, I had a lot more years under my belt than your middle son does and him being young, energetic, in shape, athletic and all that, he'll probably manage it without much more than a blink of the eye. Sometimes, I really hate young people these days!